The Krishnakriti Foundation, found in 2003 in the memory of Shri Krishnachandra B. Lahoti, is engaged in non-profit and cultural activities to support the emerging artists, endangered art traditions and struggling artisan communities.

Festival

The Krishnakriti Foundation conducts the most prominent art and culture festival of Hyderabad every year in January. The four-day long festival brings together the artists, curators, singers, musicians, dancers, theatre personalities, performers, authors, poets, actors, scholars, academicians and art and cultural enthusiasts from across the country.

The events include art exhibitions, workshops, seminars, panel discussions, plays, book readings, film screenings and concerts in different venues across the city, attracting a wider audience with diverse interest. Every year, over 5,000 visitors take part in the festival. For four days the city becomes a hub of cultural sharing.

The Krishnakriti Foundation had jointly conducted “Bonjour India” – a celebration of art and a culture of France in 2010, 2013 and now in 2017, 2018.

Scholarship

One of the important philanthropic initiatives of the Krishnakriti Foundation is offering scholarships to the promising artists and architects. The financial patronage and professional exposure provided by the foundation help the young creative minds in achieving their goals at an early stage of their career.

The Krishnakriti Foundation in association with Govt. of France through their Embassy in India, provides fellowships to study fine arts and architecture at some of the finest educational institutes of France.

Reforming inmates

Krishnakriti Foundation endeavours, in collaboration with the Telangana State Prisons, to imbue the life of the jail inmates with the spirit of creativity and colours. This initiative was introduced to Chanchalguda and Cherlapally jail to reshape the prisoners’ souls through the creative therapy. For the last two years, Krishnakriti Foundation has been engaged in training the inmates in painting and drawing. Their works have been showcased in different cities across the country and received several prestigious awards.

Street Art Festival – Hyderabad

Since 2016, Krishnakriti Foundation and Art@Telangana associated with the Govt. of Telangana, and the Street Art Foundation jointly conduct the Telangana Kala Mela and the Street Art Festival.

As part of the Street Art Festival, the area of MS Maqta was given a much-needed facelift with whole buildings and walls acting as the vast canvas for artists. The artists with their imaginations and ingenious skill of painting have transformed the entire locale into a beautiful piece of art. The foundation has been instrumental in the installation of the iconic Love Hyderabad sculpture on Necklace road which blends with the iconic megalithic Buddha Statue in Hussain Sagar to create a mesmerizing impression of the city.

Love HYD

Since November 2016 Hyderabad has its new typographical icon at the heart of the city. Love Hyderabad sculpture with its contrasting red and white letters stand firmly across the skyline of Tank Bund. It is the new hot spot for the Gen Y who never misses a chance to click selfies with it.

The typographical structure designed by artists Hitesh Malaviya and Hanif Kureshi, has the word ‘love’ in Devanagari script while ‘Hyderabad’ is abbreviated into HYD. The designers intended to blend both the languages which would reflect the city’s innate spirit to endure the tradition while heading towards modernity and by turning the ल in a hollowed-red heart the artists have bestowed the sculpture with a very modish demeanor. The Love Hyderabad sculpture was inaugurated by Telangana IT minister KT Rama Rao on November 25, 2016.

Love VIZAG

The iconic ‘Love Vizag’ sculpture stands at the TU 142 aircraft museum in Vizag. The contrasting red and white sculpture has become a tourist attraction not only for its modern outlook but also for its representation of Vizag and love for the Telugu language. The magnificent piece of art has been installed at its present location by the Kalakriti India. The typographical structure has the word ‘love’ in Telugu script while ‘Vizag’ is written in English. The designers endeavored to blend the tradition with modernity, local to international.

Heritage Walks

Hyderabad Walks is an initiative of the Krishnakriti Foundation to present Hyderabad in its diverse moods. We partner with various government organizations to offer heritage experiences – walks, workshops, interactions and study groups for the public.

Our logo is inspired from the historic perfume bottle(Ittar) in the Deccan which reflects the delicate encounter that the region is – its essence spreads immediately when you open the bottle!

Kalakriti Residency programme is one of the most prolific residency programmes of the country. Standing at the heart of the city of Hyderabad the residency accommodates two to three artists at a time who engage themselves in a month-long creative process through exchanging ideas and creating dialogue. This programme provides the emerging artists with a working space, materials and other equipment to continue experimenting with individual thoughts and its execution. At the end of the programme, Kalakriti Art Gallery hosts a talk and presentation by the participating artists followed by the display of their works.

Kalakriti Archive (KA), one of the largest private collections of India houses quite a number of vintage photographs and rare maps of South Asia. KA treasures the photographs, clicked by Raja Deen Dayal, the doyen of Indian photography, allowing us to take a look at the thriving Indian cities in the late nineteenth century. These vintage photographs provide glimpses of the monuments and architectural marvels of these cities standing the test of time. The collection of rare maps includes religious, historical, geographical and political manifestation of the land.

Kalakriti Archives participated in the Kochi – Muziris Biennale 2014 and exhibited its collection of regional and religious maps from the Indian sub-continent. In 2015, an exhibition titled ‘Cosmology to Cartography’ was held at the National Museum, Delhi. Later the show ‘Time, Space and Place’ was curated as a part of the Krishnakriti Festival 2018 in Hyderabad, and this show traveled to IISc, Bangalore in March-April 2018. The digital copies of the maps are also available on Google Cultural Institute platform.

Following the exhibitions, two scholars sponsored by IFA and The Tata Trust are researching the maps from the collection of Kalakriti Archives.

Artcafe believes in bringing art into everyday life through its impressive range of life style products. Being based in Vizag, the store aims at exploring the scenic beauty of the place as well as its magnificent monuments. A team of very talented designers have created unique products imprinted with the images of Vizag. Moreover, the option of customization has opened the path to meet the client’s taste and requirement.

Giftosis specialises in the production of customised gifting solutions, home décor, and lifestyle accessories with a manufacturing facilities span over 10,000 sft. of space with installations of technologically advanced imported machinery, suitable for the production of components. Incorporating high technology facilitates the products with absolute precision and premium outlook.

Highly skilled designers, technical operators, and quality control personnel collaborate to make out the best of their creative prowess. Giftosis emphasises being persistent with the quality of the product while meeting the deadlines with high professionalism.

Next to the Kalakriti Art Gallery stands The Gallery Café, the al fresco café that has turned up to be a must go for the city vegans. Surrounded by a patch of green, the café houses a good number of artworks in its premises which add to its artistic ambience. From hand-painted furniture to imprinted menu cards, art touches every bit of it. This food-point not only offers continental cuisine but also provides a cosy space for discussion, sharing and informal chats. People from different age groups visit the café to content their diverse interests, be it food, art, music, formal or informal meeting.

Facilitating an alternative space for showcasing young artists, The Gallery Café compliments the art activity of the Kalakriti Art Gallery. Not only Visual Artists, musicians, performers, stand-up comedians, magicians, theatre activists are also welcome with much praise and enthusiasm. Every Wednesday the café turns into a cultural platform for the emerging talents who may open up their heart before the mic for the first time.

The Gallery Cafe is recognised by the New York Times and Evening Standard as one of the top ten places to visit in Hyderabad for its art, ambience and food.

Créatif

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”

-Pablo Picasso

Opening Soon

Creatif is a multi-designer store, presenting a brand new collection of home decor and lifestyle products. And each of them unfolds the sumptuous treasure of Indian art and its sheer aesthetics. With our uniquely designed products, we seek to illuminate your prosaic, everyday life.

Creatif offers a varied range of products, starting from home decor, office essentials to fashion, jewellery and accessories. Our creative team is aiming at marrying modern designs with traditional craftsmanship, which bestows the products with certain individuality.

History says India embraced modernity through a journey towards its traditions. In today’s time, when the craftsmen are confronting the hurdle of financial distress, the insouciance of commoners as well as the people in power, Creatif initiates to empower them through an artistic collaboration. The artisans are appropriating their traditional style and motifs for the new age products using eco-friendly materials. This initiative, on one hand, will help to revive the dying crafts and will edify the people about their indigenous art traditions, on the other.

Creatif is all set to bring the positive resonance of art in your life. All our products, crafted by the master craftsmen with such passion and love that will echo a hundred silent words to the person you are gifting it.

KAG Contemporary is the newest addition to the Kalakriti India Family with a very promising prospect in promoting new generation art. The gen Y artists, exploring different unconventional mediums and material possibilities are likely to be promoted and supported by this initiative.

Around two decades back when Kalakriti Art Gallery (KAG) started its journey at the heart of Hyderabad, the city possessed a trivial status in the contemporary art scenario of India. But since 2002, from the time of its birth, the gallery, through its persistent effort, has excelled in the art milieu of the 21st century India. Over the years it has proudly hosted the landmark exhibitions by the pioneering artists, as well as promoted budding talents. KAG houses an impressive collection of artworks by the leading artists of India such as Anju Dodiya, Jogen Chowdhury, K G Subramanyam, S H Raza, Surya Prakash, T Vaikuntam, K S Radhakrishnan, Seema Kohli, Manish Pushkale among others. Not only by curating shows, but KAG also aims at edifying the people of Hyderabad by conducting seminars, workshops, panel discussions on a regular basis. This intellectual exercise and sharing fertilise the young minds of the artists and art students to fathom the ambiguity in their conceptual and theoretical practice. Art historians and critics such as Alka Pande, Jyotirmaya Sharma, Nancy Adajania, Ranjit Haskote have been part of these scholarly exercises.

The present definition of Fine Arts transcends the limitations of the previous days and appears as a more inclusive discipline sharing and exchanging thoughts with other disciplines like history, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, regional studies, films, and many more. As approaching as a new-age art gallery, KAG encourages different sorts of experiments young artists are coming up with. Performance, installation, digital art go hand in hand with the so-called ‘conventional mediums’ such as painting, sculpture, and printmaking.

Its collaborative initiatives are supported by Alliance Francaise, Goethe Zentrum, University of Hyderabad and many such cultural hubs. Among its participation in national art fairs most notable are Art Expo, Mumbai, India Art Fair, Delhi, and The Luxury Expo, Hyderabad. Recently, Kalakriti has traveled to Bordeaux, France with its major show titled ‘Kal, Aaj Aur Kal’, tracing the evolution of Hyderabad landscape through vintage and contemporary photographs.

KAG has housed its enormous collection of artworks at the Merchant Towers on Road no. 4 at Banjara Hills. The innovatively designed space offers the art enthusiasts and collectors to have a look at the original works and experience their true colours, shapes and forms. The collection includes an excellent range of artworks by great masters, senior and contemporary artists to junior and upcoming artists. One can enjoy their aesthetic beauty and pick up the ones that have intrigued them to add to their private collections. KAG’s professional art support team will install the artworks at the collector’s place with much proficiency.